Success in controversy

“Not to be shocking means to agree to be furniture.”

Scrawled in an upper corner of an Orange County Museum of Art hallway, the phrase suits the times, as three new art shows bring the scandalous, the avant-garde and the satirical to Orange County.

The Orange County Museum of Art has launched a major new retrospective of the works of Peter Saul, compiled from the past several decades.

Saul is a controversial pioneer of pop art whose works, called “sick jokes” by Robert Storr, the curator and dean of the Yale School of Art, inspired legions of fans.

“Saul’s ongoing lack of official recognition is probably the most strikingly disproportionate to his large and growing influence on younger artists today,” guest curator Dan Cameron said.

Saul’s depictions of peculiar iceboxes, Superman and Donald Duck join more recent works depicting President Bush, O.J. Simpson and Saddam Hussein.

His iconic brain paintings take up an entire section of the exhibition.

Born in 1934 in San Francisco, Saul was a merchant seaman before attending Stanford and other art schools.

His satirical works comment on the glossing over of negative moments in American history to the pomposity of the art world of which he is a reluctant member.

“Rambunctious, wildly imaginative, yet oddly moralistic, his paintings are psychedelic tent revivals in which demons are exorcised, hypocrisies unmasked, and the grand themes of history and culture reduced to their often violent and narcissistic core,” Museum Director Dennis Szakacs said.

The exhibition will travel to Philadelphia this fall.

Sprawling ideas

At the Huntington Beach Art Center, artists Kiel Johnson, Lucrecia Troncoso and P. Williams used everyday materials to create their personal versions of urban sprawl and utopia.

Sponges, cardboard and paper became a survival vest, a neon green tree and a mini city, complete with airplanes, cars and freeway overpasses.

They’ll open their show Friday night with an opening reception featuring performance art at 8.

Visual feast

The Laguna Art Museum, 307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach, has just debuted “In the Land of Retinal Delights: The Juxtapoz Factor,” which presents the work of 150 artists who have been involved with Juxtapoz Magazine since its founding in 1994.

Now the most widely ready art magazine in the country, the publication features everything from lowbrow art to Kustum Kulture.

IF YOU GO

Orange County Museum of Art

WHAT: “Peter Saul”

WHEN: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday. Open until 8 p.m. Thursday; show closes Sept. 21

WHERE: 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach

COST: Adults $10; students and seniors $8; children younger than 12 and members free

INFORMATION: (949) 759-1122 or ocma.net

Huntington Beach Art Center

WHAT: “Ground Us”

WHEN: Noon to 6 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday; noon to 4 p.m. Sunday; show opens Friday and closes Aug. 31

WHERE: 538 Main St., Huntington Beach

COST: Free admission

INFORMATION: (714) 374-1650 or surfcity-hb.org

Laguna Art Museum

WHAT: “In the Land of Retinal Delights: The Juxtapoz Factor”

WHEN: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily; open until 9 p.m. July 3; show closes Oct. 5

WHERE: 307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach

COST: $10 general; $8 seniors, students and active duty military and dependents; children 12 and younger get in free

INFORMATION: (949) 494-8971 or lagunaartmuseum.org

CANDICE BAKER can be reached at (949) 494-5480 or at [email protected].